Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(drugs) a marijuana smoker.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

(Aus.) a small, dirty apartment.

1989

B. Reed ‘Messman on C.E.’s Altar’ in Passing Strange (2015) 15: He had his one-bedroom ‘roach-cage’ on the other side of the [...] Expressway.

(drugs) a small spring clip or pair of tweezers used to hold the last fragments of a marijuana cigarette, which is otherwise too hot to hold in one’s fingers.

1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 40: Shirley kept the radio stores busy replacing the alligator clamps she [...] used for roach holders.
1968		N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 174: I wish I had Chob’s old roach clip.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 221: roach pick roach holder.
1969		L. Yablonsky Hippie Trip 206: I started selling roach-holders.
1972		Harper’s Mag. Apr. 90: Candles, leather handbags, bejeweled roach clips.
1976		N.Y. Times Mag. 4 July 20: Petersen was sitting on the floor of his cabin, passing a joint on a bobby-pin roach holder to his live-in girlfriend.
1983		S. King Christine 198: Three guys and two girls, hurriedly finishing a joint. They had it in a makeshift matchbook roachclip.
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 33: You hear dat? says Shitsky attachin’ a roach clip to his spliff.
2003		T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 45: The women nodded, one hitting a roach clip, the other holding her smoke.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 271: Fred [...] uses the metal fastener as a makeshift roach clip to finish the rest of the weed in one mighty toke.

1. (Aus./US) a mobile food van.

1988		Canberra Times (ACT) 4 Feb. 2/1: [I]t is similar to the term ‘roach coach’ for the mobile canteen and ‘rat coffin’ for the pie purchased there.
1995		Google Groups: rec.aviation.piloting 28 Nov. 🌐 At least during the Summer, Pepperell (MA09) has a ‘roach coach’ that I have never been disappointed with .
2004		Google Groups: rec.food.cooking 9 Apr. 🌐 The roach coaches around the businesses I’ve worked are cleaner than many of the local restaurants.
2011		S. Bird Gap Year [ebook] ‘Renting a trailer this summer was my idea. We made money and learned how to run a business. Then, later, we learned how to cook real food.’ [...] ‘A roach coach! That is what you threw all your college money away on!’.
2019		C.D. Rosales Word Is Bone [ebook] I had a roach coach I operated out front of Progress Park, selling Twizzlers to the teenagers [...] in the evenings, selling burritos to construction workers busy bitching by dawn.

2. (US) any form of second-rate public transport.

1999

Google Groups: rec.travel.caribbean 20 Sept. 🌐 Eastern had a special tariff on this flight: night coach, which quickly became known as roach coach .

(US drugs) a collection of cannabis cigarette stubs that can be recycled [pun on US Roach Motel, a patented cockroach trap].

2000

‘Stoner Dict.’ on Lil’ Bastard’s House of Heaven 🌐 Roach Hotel – A collection of roaches to be rolled into a new joint.

(drugs) to inhale deeply on a marijuana cigarette.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 29/1: Blast the roach. To draw deeply on a marijuana cigarette.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 3: Blast a roach — To smoke marijuana.

1. the ‘coach’ or economy section of a passenger aircraft.

1971		N.Y. Times 24 Jan. XX1: Puerto Ricans themselves call it the ‘cattle car’ because of its reputation for overcrowding from the old days. Snobbish stewardesses refer to it as the ‘roach coach’ because they expect the passengers to be unclean.
1985		Wash. Post 6 Oct. H10: Shuttle Nicknames: Roach Coach. Cattle Car (courtesy Jacob Javits). Glamor Glider. Bagel-less Bomber. Late Show. Waiting Room. Flying None.

2. a food service wagon.

1965		Paananen & Drummond Sky Rangers 30: Greasy hamburgers and coffee from the Pan American lunch truck, affectionately called the Roach Coach.
1985		Wash. Post 10 Oct. D1: A roach coach is actually a food service truck, but neither the drivers nor the customers address it by its formal name. And when Shannon speaks of hers, it’s happily, with affection--as in, ‘You ought to taste what a fine cup of coffee my roach coach can make,’ or, ‘Today, this old roach coach is pretty much breezing along.’.
1992		L.A. Times 8 July 1: It may be San Diego’s most exclusive open-air dining experience. Certainly it is the most aromatic. It begins with a catering truck, like hundreds that ply San Diego work sites. Yes, but this is no ordinary roach coach, ptomaine wagon or gedunk truck.
1997		N.Y. Times 30 Nov. ST1: A day’s work [i.e. on a film set] cannot begin until the catering van, called the ‘roach coach,’ rolls up.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 209: He owned [...] three roach coaches.

(US, also roach trap, roach motel, roach palace) a cheap, dilapidated, dirty room or building, usu. a hotel.

1945		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 22 Dec. 27: [S]queezed in apartments like most of Harlem’s roach harbors and trampy houses.
1960		‘Sheldon Lord’ Kept 96: The building was nicer than a lot of the roach-traps in the Village and her apartment was furnished cheaply but in good taste.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 123: He and my mother manage a roach hotel filled with winos, druggies and artists.
1995		P. Cornwell From Potter’s Field (1996) 306: We found out where they were staying. The Hacienda Motel on US 1, that roach trap not too far from where you buy all your guns and ammo.
1995		S. King Rose Madder 236: It’s like the Roach Motel.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 66: Your accountant had all of your business records [...] in the room, in that roach palace.
2005		K. Huff A Steady Rain I i: Rearrange the affordable portables around that one-room roach motel you call home?
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 117: After a year renting our ‘roach palace’ [...] Matt and I [...] buy a semi in Rozelle.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 68: The workers shared rooms at a local roach-friendly motel.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 95: That face was like, I just checked out the roach motel in my fucked-up head an now I’ma shove yo ass in my white cargo van an take you to location number 2, where the truly crazy shit gon go down.

highly pointed shoes.

1970		in DARE.
1972		(con. 1960s) R. Price ‘Big Playground’ in Antaeus Aut. 38: Johnson wore roach killers—to the point of a dangerous weapon, curving high over his ankle and low over his heel.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 5: Richie wore roach killers – pointy as a dangerous weapon, curbing high over his ankle and low over his heel.
2004		annika’s journal 22 Feb. 🌐 I’m not willing to part with my roach killers just yet. Chiffon and roach killers? Hmmm.
2004		(ref. to 1960s) R. McRoberts 20 Feb. [blog] I frothed at the mouth over ‘Beatle boots’. Every time I got a spare 8 bucks (this was in the 60s) I’d go over to Hardy’s or Flagg Bros. and cop another variation of the pointed ‘roach killers’.

(US) a run-down, dirty room, lit. one that is infested with cockroaches; also attrib.

1940		J. Archibald ‘No Place Like Homicide’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 I used to room in this roach palace.
1981		W.E. Butterworth Flunking Out 115: The lady at the Roach Palace wanted twenty-two fifty a week.
1993		M.E. Parker Patterns of Nursing 151: Sea Camp, also known as ‘Roach Palace,’ has no heat, falling-down ceilings and walls, and a generally unsafe appearance.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 153: I’m in this roach-palace holding cell.
2009		R. Price Samaritan 218: OK, so, we spend the better part of an hour tearing up this hot, greasy, stinky four-room roach palace.

1. pointed shoes or boots.

1985		Morris & Drake Active Measures 193: Owen Neely, of the gaudy silver prize-buckles with horses’ names on them and the lizard roach-stompers.
2011		Carla & Parks Win from the Back 81: [He] used to have a pair of shoes that were real pointed. We used to call them Italian roach stompers. You could stomp a roach in a corner with those pointed shoes.

2. (US) heavy, unfashionable shoes.

2002		Albuquerque Journal 27 Oct. 🌐 We will start with Bill and the boots. The garish cream-and-tan roach stompers that peeked from the former U.N. ambassador’s trousers [etc.].
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 85: The shoes were an artifact from a fitful past [...] Everybody called them roach-stompers.

(W.I.) to be sexually unfaithful, to cuckold.

1976

cited in Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996).